Talking To A Little Bird Poem by Gert Strydom

I see you sitting twittering,
talking as if it's a spring thing
while moving up and down
with your black tail
fanning out, your black and white body
never sitting still
while you are pecking berries
hidden between branches and leaves.

Your voice is more pleasant
than that of the rascal window pecking
black-collard barbet,
or the cooing of love struck doves
and you are already happy
about the coming spring
of the next year

and to you it doesn't matter, that unions are striking,
laying the country lame,
the great victory in three nations rugby
over Australia,
even the death of school children
in a collision of a minibus taxi with a train

and I wish that my own life
was as simple, to appreciate the small, little things
like the warm sunshine on my skin,
the cool water splashing on to me
by overjoyed children
in the municipal swimming pool
and that I would also be able to realise
how great it is to be living.